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The Splash is a pop–art artwork by British artist David Hockney, created in 1966. A splash of water generated by an unknown individual who has seemingly just dived in from a diving board disturbs a swimming pool alongside a pavilion. It’s an acrylic painting on a 72″ (180 cm) square canvas that’s named, signed, and dated 1966 on the back. A Little Splash (1966, private collection) and A Bigger Splash (1967, private collection) are the other two linked pieces painted in 1966 and 1967. (1967, Tate Britain, London).

In 1964, Hockney made his first trip to Los Angeles. He went to California in 1966, drawn by the environment, light, and way of life, particularly the blue swimming pools.

The Splash is the second of three paintings by Hockney depicting similar themes he completed in late 1966 and early 1967. Hockney progressed from the small The Little Splash to the medium-sized The Splash, both created in Los Angeles in 1966, to the biggest, A Bigger Splash, created in Berkeley in 1967 and measuring roughly 96 in (240 cm) square.

Hockney shows the brief moment right after a diver enters the water in a swimming pool from a diving board, throwing up white spray, using abstracted forms of flat color with clearly defined edges in the center of a vast canvas with an unprimed border. Hockney relished the opportunity to spend weeks painstakingly painting the densely wrought spray with tiny brushes, capturing this dramatic detail in time, although at a brief moment. The square shape and unpainted border give it a Polaroid-like appearance.

The piece is inspired by a photograph on the front of a technical manual on swimming pool construction (Swimming Pools by Sunset Books, published in 1959), which depicts a single-story pavilion with splayed bonnet roof beside a pool over which projects a diving board, with two people observing the Splash created by an unseen diver, amid green scenery beneath blue skies.

The series by Hockey progressively simplifies and abstracts the composition by cropping the setting and eliminating people, pool furniture, scenery, and other distracting elements. The bonnet-roofed pavilion remained in The Little Splash and The Splash, but it was replaced with a more extended, lower modernist structure with a flat roof in A Bigger Splash.

A beige diving board extends diagonally from the painting’s bottom right corner over a deep blue pool with a white spray of water fountaining into the air, depicting the moment just after someone has jumped in.

The diver is not visible, indicating that they are still submerged. A pink patio with a black border and some cactus in a square flower bed surround the pool. The pavilion features a white wall and grey roof with a curtain and reflections in its wide sliding glass doors. A featureless green landscape and a cloudless lighter blue sky may be seen behind you.

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